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{{trope}}
 
[[File:guard_bots_5651.jpg|link=Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|frame|Elite security.]]
 
 
{{quote|''"All this constant turning my back on the dark woods really makes me miss [[Fatal Family Photo|my wife and family]]."''|'''[http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=14&issue=1 Random Guard]''', ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (Webcomic)|The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]''.}}
 
Being a guard for an [[Evil Overlord]] is a low-status, low-pay, high-risk job in an [[No OSHA Compliance|unsafe workplace]], with very little [[You Have Failed Me|long term job security]], but hey, they normally have a brilliant [[Retirony|pension plan]]. So it's hardly surprising that most applicants aren't exactly [[Clueless Deputy|the sharpest knives in the drawer]] (not that their bosses tolerate [[Surrounded Byby Idiots|incompetent underlings]]), and could be fooled by tricks that wouldn't bother an average six-year old.
 
'''Common issues are:'''
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* Sounding the alarm at the [[So Much for Stealth|crack of a twig]], even if it's [[Convenient Decoy Cat|just a cat]].
* When searching for people, [[Failed a Spot Check|not looking in ridiculously obvious hiding places]].
* Assuming anyone in a [[Dressing Asas the Enemy|guard outfit]] must be a guard, even if they don't [[Faceless Goons|recognize]] them <ref>Although this may be [[Justified Trope]] for the [[New Meat]]</ref>.
* Not asking for identification when an unscheduled [[Trojan Prisoner|prisoner shipment]] of a large and dangerous captive shows up.
* Assuming that the heroes would never attempt to sneak by [[Right Under Their Noses]].
* Getting easily distracted, especially by [[Fake-Out Make-Out|prisoners getting it on]].
* But never curious enough to eavesdrop on conversations between the prisoner and [["Alone Withwith Prisoner" Ploy|unscheduled higher-ups]], ''especially'' when they say they [["Alone Withwith Prisoner" Ploy|want to be alone]] with a prisoner, if you know what I mean.
* Leaving important keys dangling from an easily accessible chain.
* Walking very close to prisoners.
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* Not properly searching prisoners before throwing them into the cell.
* [[Surveillance Station Slacker|Falling asleep]].
* [[Drinking Onon Duty]].
* [[Distracted Byby the Sexy|Ogling the centerfold]] in the latest issue of ''Hot Babes'' instead of paying attention to what's going on around them.
* Not noticing that the other guards seem to be disappearing.
* Carrying or storing weapons in a prison, in such a way that they are easily stolen by the escaping prisoners (prison guards being heavily armed makes sense, but not in a way that allows the prisoners to acquire these weapons).
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== Anime & Manga ==
* The Britannian guards in ''[[Code Geass (Anime)|Code Geass]]'' frequently wait until Lelouch has geassed them before actually doing their job. Twice they have waited for Lelouch to give a long pretentious speech before he geassed them into killing themselves. Reaches its peak when Lelouch just walks up and waits more than a minute while the guards attack him with spears before geassing the entire room. Britannia has got to have the dumbest guards in fiction. At least stormtroopers bring blasters.
** The Chinese Federation are even worse, while they do have guns they just stare dumb founded as Xingke fights them off with a sword since the only Chinese soldiers to fight are the ones with spears, and then they watch as Lelouch gives a speech before finally Lelouch has the sense to take his gun and hold Tianzi hostage with it.
** In one episode, an unarmed Lelouch and Kallen find some Britannians on a remote island and effortlessly steal their ridiculously powerful prototype mech. The mech itself was unguarded, and the "guards" ''left the keys in the ignition.'' Kallen has to beat up a few guys, but [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|they don't make use of their firepower advantage.]]
* In ''[[Mazinkaiser]]'', Baron Ashura's mooks ''are'' this trope, as exemplified in a scene during the beach episode that so utterly ridiculous that you wouldn't believe it unless you see it.
* In ''[[Naruto (Manga)|Naruto]]'', the nameless ninja mooks are usually dumb brutes, masked and, in a world filled with powerful techniques, normally attack with kunai rather than, you know, throw a massive fireball or do any other flashy attack to blow the opponent to dust! Worse is that even the [[Red Shirt|RedShirts]] can be defeated by a single attacker and barely fight using any jutsu. It seems like that only the main characters, villain or hero, are trained in anything other than holding a kunai against the opponent who can pick one technique of his ARSENAL and shoot fire hotter than the sun, create tornadoes, open the ground beneath them and bury them, or throw rocks the size of buildings at them...etc. Yeah. That's the guy you want to try and take prisoner with your dinky little knife.
* In ''[[Windaria (Anime)|Windaria]]'' the key to Lunara's floodgates are guarded by an old man that sleeps most of the day in a guardhouse without a door. At the start of the film, a spy walks in there, takes the keys, and no one realizes anything until he opens the flood gates. Considering this could have flooded the entire city it merges with [[Too Dumb to Live]].
 
 
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* In an early ''[[Johan and Peewit]]'' story, a bunch of guards abandon all common sense for a barrel of mead, leaving the guard room empty (and allowing Johan to sabotage the drawbridge).
* In the very first story of ''[[Diabolik]]'' it's mentioned that he had broken out of the supposedly unescapable prison of Asen. More recently a flasback showed how he did it: he killed two guards who gave him a small opening, stole the uniform of one of them and ruined his face to slow identification, then took off his [[Latex Perfection|perfect mask]] and walked out dressed as a guard. Granted, that was before the police knew of his masks or his true face, but the guards still failed to notice a man in uniform who was ''not'' one of them...
* In ''[[Tintin (Comic Book)|The Seven Crystal Balls]]'', Thompson and Thomson are assigned to guard Dr. Midge. They are suspicious of a package addressed to him which turns out to be a harmless present, but neglect the [[Dangerous Windows|windows]], which were the point of entry for previous attacks and the one that claims Dr. Midge.
 
 
== Fan Works ==
* Parodied in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series (Web Video)|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'' when Tristan is sneaking up on a guard in a suit of armor. "CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK." "Must be the wind." "CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK." "Yeah, that's definitely the sound that wind makes."
* When Feliciano rescues Ludwig from the American base in the ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia (Manga)|Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' fanfiction, "Auf Wiedersen, Sweetheart." The plan involved getting all but two American guards to leave by telling them that their counterparts had gotten into a [[Bar Brawl]] in town and then convincing the remaining guards to [[Drinking Onon Duty|drink the drugged flask of bourbon]].
* [[Legolas By Laura (Fanfic)|legolas by laura]] features a scene described thus by a sporker, caused by sheer incoherence:
{{quote| "Looks like Legolas has just asked the guards – sorry, the ''gards'' to keep an eye on Laura's room while the orcs are kidnapping her, and... it all gets a bit confused."<br />
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== Films -- Animation ==
* The ultimate and truly memorable subversion in ''[[Titan AEA.E.]]'': Preed, Stith, and Korso are trying to free Akima from a slave prison. They see a large, brutish guard around a corner, and Stith offers to take him out. Preed refuses, saying, "This requires cunning and deception." They then walk up to the guard, and Preed spins a tale that he and Stith are traders, and that Korso is his slave. After delivering his story, the guard says these exact things: "You're ''lying''. ''He's'' [Korso] not a slave and ''you're'' not traders. Look at the way he ''stands''. He doesn't ''carry'' himself like a slave. Probably ''ex-military''." (Korso is a former Earth [[Space Marine]].) "Akrennians [like Preed] always threaten before asking a favor, ''it's tradition''." (Which Preed apparently ''completely'' forgot.) "And ''your'' [Stith] robes are made out of ''bedspreads!''" Preed then asks if they have a Plan B. Stith promptly reverts to her Plan A by kicking the crap out of the guard.
{{quote| '''Preed:''' An intelligent guard! Didn't see that one coming.}}
** The commentary reveals this is one of the very few complete relics of [[Joss Whedon]]'s pass at the script.
* Double subversion in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]''. The heroes (who consist of an amorphous blob, a fish-man and a human/cockroach hybrid) adopt [[Paper-Thin Disguise|Paper Thin Disguises]] to bluff their way past an alien clone. He recognises the fake clone as "defective beyond repair"... and immediately orders the other two to dispose of him. And gives them a key card. And a gun.
* The Guards in ''[[Tangled (Disney)|Tangled]]''. They cannot find an old lady who has kidnapped the baby princess for almost two decades, when she happened to be in a tower within riding distance. Then said princess' crown get's stolen right under thier noses. Then one of the thieves comes back to Corona later with a girl with 70 feet long of hair and they don't notice it, even though he is dancing around. The only competent member is [[Cool Horse|Maximus]], and {{spoiler|he's the only one to make crime virtually dissapear}}.
** Not to mention that the same thief was able to walk up to the palace and meet the King and Queen face to face.
* The guards in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' fall prey to a few of these. They're decent enough at their jobs when they're in action, but it's the boring surveillance part of the day that always slips them up. At one point in the movie, they ''all'' leave their posts to check on a colleague who's just collapsed. Later, they don't notice Helen when she's right behind them. She even talks. Later still, nobody is paying attention to the security cameras and are all partying in the background. Only [[Punch Clock Villain|Mirage]] notices the escapees that don't even bother to avoid the security cameras. Most notably, though, is later in the same scene where it gets absurd enough that Bob [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it. They enter a large room with no one in it and he absently wonders, "Where are all the guards?"
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* Consistent in all the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' movies. One even manages to fall into the lava flow when he's outwitted by Felicity Shagwell's boobs.
* In ''[[Mom and Dad Save The World]]'', a guard, despite being from a planet of idiots, ''doesn't'' assume Dad is a guard just because he's wearing a uniform... however, she unquestioningly accepts the laughable answers he provides in response to her questioning and lets him go on his way.
* [[Playing Withwith a Trope|Played with again]] in ''Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle'', when the racist white prison guards attack a peaceful African American prisoner, thus allowing Kumar to escape with an enormous bag of marijuana.
* The security guards on the Death Star in ''[[Star Wars]]: A New Hope''. Ben uses a ''[[Jedi Mind Trick]]'' version of this after turning the tractor beam off. This is actually an inversion of [[It's Probably Nothing]]. Presumably, Ben made the guards think they heard something off in the distance, and like intelligent guards they go to investigate. Unfortunately for them, it really was nothing.
** The novel ''Death Star'' turns this on its head. One of the normal human Stormtrooper commanders was sensitive to the Force and really hated his bosses. He mislead his own troops and thus allowed Han and the others an easier path to freedom.
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{{quote| "Now, you're not supposed to enter the roo-- ARRGH!"}}
* Justified in ''[[THX 1138 (Film)|THX 1138]]'', in that, though the guards are glaringly incompetent, the general population (with the sole exceptions of the hero and his girlfriend) are too stupid/strung out to notice. For example, the guards routinely leave the doors to a high security prison unlocked, but none of the prisoners had ever bothered to check.
* ''[[Race for Thethe Yankee Zephyr]]'' (1981). A mook standing on the edge of a cliff catches the hero sneaking up, intent on braining him with a lump of wood. Instead of grabbing his rifle the mook begins waving his arms about and howling in a highly exaggerated martial arts style. The hero gapes in astonishment then, as the mook turns to deliver a spinning kick, boots him down the mountainside.
* In ''Charlotte Gray'', which takes place in Nazi-occupied France, the eponymous heroine and a member of the French resistance are being held in a house by Nazis, and manage to distract the guard who's supposed to be watching them by making out, then jump him and run for it when he comes over to separate them.
* ''[[The Good, the Bad Andand Thethe Ugly]]'' (1966). Wallace lets Tuco go relieve himself. BIG mistake.
* ''[[Idiocracy]]'' "Hey, uh... I'm actually supposed to be getting out of jail, not going back in..."
* ''[[Goldfinger (Film)|Goldfinger]]''. Played straight with the foolish guard who enters the cell alone while [[James Bond (Filmfilm)|James Bond]] is performing a [[Ceiling Cling]] and subverted by later multiple guards who's more watchful such as staying in the same cell with one having a pistol trained on Bond at all times.
* In ''[[Night Atat the Museum]]: Battle of the Smithsonian'', Larry's escapades in the various branches of the Smithsonian along the National Mall go completely unnoticed, as if the entire area is devoid of any human presence save Larry himself. Ironically, Larry is a guard.
** Of course, would YOU stick around once the dinosaur skeletons and such started moving?
* In Star Trek VI, the Enterprise manages to fly deep into Klingon territory to rescue Kirk and [[Mc Coy]] despite a listening post picking them up and demanding to know their identity and destination. They manage to fool the completely incompetant guards despite having to resort to using an English-Klingon dictionary to look up their answers and making several grammatical errors during the conversation.
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== Literature ==
* The ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' books have a lot of fun with this.
** In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Last Hero|The Last Hero]]'', Evil Harry Dread (the archetypical [[Evil Overlord]]) ''hires'' his henchmen on the above criteria. "Butcher" is the archetype of the trope.
** ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Guards Guards|Guards! Guards!]]'' opens with a dedication to those people "whose job it is, round about chapter three, to rush at the hero one at a time and be slaughtered."
** In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Thud|Thud!]]'', the text mentions how when Sergeant Colon is on guard duty, he "kept the cell keys in a tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk, a long way out of reach of any stick, hand, dog, cunningly thrown belt, or trained Klatchian monkey spider (making Fred Colon possibly unique in the annals of jail history)."
** Seemingly averted in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'', where the guards at Bugrup Prison are wise to every escape trope, but haven't worked out how Tinhead Ned (and later Rincewind) ''did'' escape (the jail door can be lifted off its hinges). Possibly because they reckon it makes a better ballad if the prisoner escapes and then gets killed in a last stand at the Post Office.
* In one of the ''[[Get Smart (TV)|Get Smart]]'' novels, one guard is particularly immune to this. Instead of entering the cell when Max sets fire to the bed as a diversion, the guard merely opens up on him with the firehose.
** However, just a few pages later the rest of the guards in the prison are fooled by Max writing "out of order" with a piece of chalk on a death ray!
* Subverted in ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (Literaturenovel)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'': Ford attempts to save himself and Arthur from being chucked out an airlock by talking a Vogon guard into questioning the purpose of his life, but the guard is too dumb for Ford to get through to him.
** Actually it's just that the guard really enjoys his job. Including the whole throw people out of the airlock part.
* Both fiercely subverted and then played straight in ''An Oblique Approach'', the first book of the [[Belisarius Series]] by David Drake and Eric Flint. The Kushans guarding Princess Shakuntala were so highly disciplined, effective, and intelligently led that Raghunath Rao, greatest assassin in India, knew he could '''never''' rescue her from them. So {{spoiler|Belisarius tricked Venandakatra into '''replacing''' the Kushans with "guards" so inept that Rao had no problem wiping them out -- except for two killed by the princess herself.}}
* The guards at the "best guarded keep of the stoutest castle" in ''[[The Wind in Thethe Willows]]'' apparently can't tell the difference between a washerwoman they see every day and is the sister or sister-in-law of the chief warden, and their main prisoner, who is an anthropomorphic toad.
* ''[[John Carter of Mars]]''. Dear GOD, if a strange man climbs up to the roof you're guarding, tells you what a difficult and dangerous climb he had, and invites you to take a look at how precariously his rope is dangling off the edge, DON'T DO IT!
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' novel ''The Hour of the Dragon'', Zenobia gets the keys, to the [[Tailor-Made Prison]] no less, by [[Drinking Onon Duty|getting them drunk]].
* Subverted in the novel ''[[Where Eagles Dare]]''. The German soldiers searching for the commandos don't check the ladies toilet where they're hiding. When one commando mentions how stupid that is, his superior points out the soldiers were eager to think up excuses to avoid searching places where desperate men might empty a submachine gun into them.
* In ''Syren'', the fifth book of the ''[[Septimus Heap (Literature)|Septimus Heap]]'' series, Septimus gets past a guard in the Trading Post by claiming that he is someone important.
* Played for laughs in [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre)|Much Ado About Nothing]]''.
{{quote| '''Dogberry:''' You are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name. '''Verges:''' How if a' will not stand? \\'''Dogberry:''' Why, take no note of him, but let him go.}}
 
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[The ChasersChaser's War Onon Everything]]'' proved this was [[Truth in Television]] at the [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/09/06/1188783415730.html APEC summit], getting to George W. Bush's hotel, past two security checkpoints in a fake motorcade, with "insecurity passes" that stated they were NOT official delegates. And a guy dressed as Osama bin Laden in the back seat. See it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3zKuLgH_l8 here].
** The motorcade had ''runners with handheld cameras.'' Even the Chaser boys themselves started to get scared at how easy it was for them to get in -- they'd been expecting to be stopped at the very first checkpoint! The were finally nabbed when their motorcade began turning around, and "Osama" decided to exit his vehicle and began asking guards why he hadn't been invited. As one commentor pointed out, it appears that day the world's leaders were mainly under the protection of the ''honour system''.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':
** [[Playing Withwith a Trope|Played with]] in the episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S24 E4 Dragonfire|Dragonfire]]", when the Doctor distracts a guard by engaging him in a philosophical discussion on the nature of existence, a subject about which the guard is particularly enthusiastic.
** Both averted and played straight in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S18 E4 State of Decay|State of Decay]]" -- one of the guards recognises that the man claiming to be a guard is, in fact, a known deserter. But the other doesn't... and falls for "the old prisoner trick".
** Lampshaded in the epsiode "Deadly Assassin" by Security Chief Spandrell's criticisms of Commander Hilred for allowing the Doctor to escape:
{{quote| '''Spandrell:''' Well done, Hilred. An antiquated capsule, for which you get adequate early warning, transducts on the very steps of the Capital. You are warned that the occupant is a known criminal, therefore you allow him to escape and conceal himself in a building a mere 53 stories high. A clever stratagem, Hildred. You're trying to confuse him, I take it? }}
* ''[[The A-Team (TV)|The A-Team]]''. Many a villain has been laid low by not paying attention to machine sounds after [[Locking MacGyver in Thethe Store Cupboard]]. There was a particularly [[Egregious]] instance where Hannibal and Face are arrested. Hannibal seems to have escaped, so the sheriff unlocks his cell and checks inside, then both he and ''the other officer in the building'' leave to find him... when Hannibal turns out to be hiding under the bed and promptly lets Face out and escapes.
* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' is pretty much entirely built around this trope.
** "Schuuuuultz!"
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''
** In the first episode, two guards go chasing off after some enchanted dice.
** In the fourth episode, they fail to notice a servant girl riding off into the night. What temp agency do they get these guys from?
* Subverted in ''[[Dark Angel]]'' when Max tries to distract a guard with a rock, but he isn't fooled. She laments, "Why did I get the smart one?"
* ''[[Star Trek]]''
** [[Star Trek: theThe Original Series (TV)|In the Original Series]], one particularly ridiculous scene has a guard of an enemy installation watch calmly and without taking action as Spock walks up to him and informs of an imaginary "multi-legged creature" on his shoulder.
** Also seen in the episode "Space Seed" in which Khan, a man described as being strong enough to lift two men with one hand, has but a single guard keeping him prisoner. Suffice to say the guard doesn't last long. To their credit, when Khan is defeated and tried, he has multiple baliffs on him holding him at phaser point.
** The [[Space Marine|M.A.C.O's]] in the next ''Trek'' series ''[[Enterprise]]'' acted [[Show Some Leg|a bit more professionally]].
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager (TV)|Star Trek Voyager]]''
** In "The Killing Game," two guards find Harry Kim suspicious and stop him to for questioning. He convinces them to let him go with this line: "All right! You'd better call the bridge. Tell your superior I'm going to be late, that I'm working under your orders now, not his. Go ahead, make the call. I don't want to take the blame for this."
** Standard procedure for security personnel on ''Voyager'' is to stand in the formal "at-ease" position, looking straight ahead (not at the person they're guarding) so they can be knocked unconscious at a suitably plot-related moment.
* From a review of the ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'' episode "Bounty".
{{quote| "...to say nothing of the guards' color codes, which include [[Red Alert|Red Standby Alert]] (apparently meaning stand around and do nothing), Red Mobilisation (wander around outside the house), and Blue Mobilisation (allow the President and his daughter to escape in a vintage car accompanied by two terrorists)."}}
* Averted in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': ''"Why do I always get the smart ones?"''
* In season 3 of ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'', Sawyer tries the whole "prisoners making out" thing to get the guards to come over when he kisses Kate, then overpowers them and takes their gun. It doesn't work, though.
* Subverted in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' in that when someone escapes from a cell it's either ({{spoiler|Bulldog, and later Ellen Tigh}} escaping from the Cylon basestar) or because the guards are in on things (Laura Roslin in Season 2, and Tom Zarek during [[The Mutiny]]). Probably the least plausible occasion is when Gina escapes from the Pegasus brig, makes her way to Admiral Cain's quarters and shoots her, ''and then'' slips off the battlestar unnoticed. Although she had the help of Baltar, a uniform and things were chaotic in the aftermath of a major attack, it still stretched the bounds of credibility.
** And played straight when you consider that with all the little ''[[Thrown Out the Airlock|accidents]]'' happening there, no one comes up with the bright idea of placing a guard at the airlocks. This is justifiable in the beginning when Galactica is massively understaffed, but not so much in the later seasons.
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{{quote| '''Guard:''' I don't watch TV. It's a cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and an unrealistic portrayal of life created by the liberal media elite.}}
** Of course, he's also working for a regime that's anything ''but'' liberal and, by that point, all media in the Earth Alliance is government-controlled (except for the Voice of the Resistance).
* Subverted in the ''[[Knight Rider (TV)|Knight Rider]]'' episode, "Indecent Little Town," when the corrupt police arrest Michael Knight and impound KITT. Specifically, when the Mooks try to secure the robot car, he resists by backing up each time they try. Although obviously surprised at this, the head Mook calmly advises one of his minions to simply provoke KITT into backing continually until the robot car inadvertently rolls onto a car garage elevator platform and they elevate it, trapping KITT.
* The team on ''[[Leverage (TV)|Leverage]]'' regularly talk their way past security but they usually have fake [[I Ds]] and the guards are standard office building rent-a-cops. However, in one episode Hardison talks his way past security to get into an airport's control tower. He has an employee ID but it is for a female employee so he makes a big deal of how he is in the middle of a sex change and the guards are too embarrassed to pursue this further. The danger of their negligence becomes apparent when Hardison almost causes a plane to crash. There is a reason why security at airports is supposed to be very tight. Also, the man in charge of the tower, apparently, doesn't know who's supposed to be working for him.
* Played straight in episode 6.21 of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]''. The mooks who guarded {{spoiler|Lisa and Ben}} heard fighting noises outside the room, and went there one by one.
 
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* Most classes that would traditionally be used as guards in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' don't have Spot, Listen or Sense Motive as class skills. This essentially makes them partially blind, hearing impaired, and incredibly gullible.
** Depends on the DM. Most play the trope straight because guards tend not to be treated as more than minor enemies. Those skills are mainly intended to counteract Hide, Move Silently, and Bluff. In addition, those skills are not infallible unless the DM hands NPCs the [[Idiot Ball]]. For example, no matter what your Hide skill is, if you walk in front of a guard without some form of cover, he sees you, no matter what.
** Scouts used as guards can avert this trope hard. They possess Spot, Listen and Sense Motive as class skills. They get 8 base skill points per level. Hide and Move Silently are class skills. In addition, they have Hide and Move Silently as class skills, so they can stand guard without being readily visible. Their Skirmish feat also gives them a significant advantage in straight combat against most stealthy classes if there is some room to move around.
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** Then you have the two thugs who capture Roger in ''Space Quest 6''. Roger is able to quickly remove his handcuffs and neutralize the one who wasn't even watching him. Then you walk out into the other room, where the other thug is unconcerned with you roaming free, simply telling you not to bother him. Partly (with a stretch) justified in that the exit is blocked by a [[Deflector Shield|forcefield]] that can only be shut off by a remote on the second thug's belt.
** Also, attempting to knock out one of the guards to the SCS ''DeepShip 86'' shuttlebay results in the other one (a bigger one) punching Roger out and throwing him into the brig (which is also ridiculously easy to escape by {{spoiler|building a likeness of Roger out of food and hiding under a food cart}}). No one also bats an eyelash at Roger {{spoiler|stealing medical supplies}} at sickbay.
* Played completely straight in ''[[Metal Gear Solid (Video Game)|Metal Gear Solid]]'', where you can take out guards one by one trigger alarms as often as you want, but after 90 seconds everything is back to normal, with dead guards not being replaced.
** Starting with ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty (Video Game)|Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty]]'', however, it gets averted very hard. When guards notice something odd, they will call in immediately before going to investigate. If they don't report back in time, more guards will be dispatched to look for them. And even when everything is clear, guards are required to report in every few minutes, or a search team is dispatched to investigate. And when full alarm is triggered, it takes just a few seconds for reinforcements to arrive [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|with riot shields, shotguns, and grenades]]. Unless there's an opportunity for an [[Air Vent Passageway]] escape nearby, you can prepare to load an old save by that point.
** And yet, throughout the first game of the series, all guards have tunnel-vision and are practically near-sighted and half-deaf, so even ''walking slowly from a little bit to the side'' will let you go unnoticed. It was even worse in the original ''[[Metal Gear 1987 (Video Game)|Metal Gear 1987]]'' on the MSX, where the guards' line of sight is literally just ''a straight line''. They'll also never suspect something's up when they find their squadmates dozing off with a tranquilizer dart on their forehead, or [[Distracted Byby the Sexy|reading Playboy magazines they found on the ground]].
* In the various games of the ''[[Thief]]'' series, guards are notoriously brain-challenged. They carry obviously important items dangling from their belts, they take a remarkably short time to go from "I saw something" to "must've been a rat", and they ignore fires and candles that get doused by water arrows (that would presumably leave a mess all over the floor). Heck, they don't even ''try'' to relight them. At least they go into full-alert mode if they notice a dead mate lying on the floor, which is more that can be said for some other games. And even then, in some of the titles, all you have to do is hide out for a while, and they'll conclude that "The murderer must be long gone by now" and resume their patrol, without even calling for assistance.
** Lampshaded in the first of level of ''Thief 2: The Metal Age'', where dousing one of the torches prompts a pair of nearby guards to argue about who should relight it, and then ultimately doing nothing as it transpires that they forgot their tinderbox.
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* In a memorable early-game sequence in ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'', your characters must sneak into a mansion guarded by a wide variety of inept guards. It's a puzzle sequence, so almost every single one of the types listed is played with, including a few who just don't care and will let you go by if you bribe them or even find their lost wallet. So hard to find good help these days. One [[Egregious]] example is a guard who admits he would be completely unable to stop the party, then ''orders'' them to go kill a guard dog to cover him, or he wouldn't let them pass. Wait a minute, couldn't we just kick ''you''?
** One of the guards justifies this, saying that their wages are too low to properly motivate most of them.
* The ''[[Assassin's Creed (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed]]'' series has an explicit [[Justified Trope|justification]] for its extensive use of this trope. Specifically, the [[Applied Phlebotinum|Animus]] that the player character is using to relive his ancestors' [[Genetic Memory]] renders the whole thing as a VR simulation. To improve his ability to "synchronize" with said memories, it eschews certain aspects of realism in favor of simplicity. In the actual past that you're reliving, Altaïr and Ezio were masters of stealth and disguise. In the Animus simulation, not so much. Specific examples include:
** Guards failing to spot or recognize a hooded, heavily armed man walking around openly in the streets while numerous people have recently been murdered in broad daylight and their bodies left lying about. Similarly, the inability to spot said hooded, heavily armed man in a crowd of people who look nothing like him.
** Guards failing to look in obvious hiding spots for the Assassin whom they were recently chasing. However, in ''[[Assassin's Creed II (Video Game)|Assassin's Creed II]]'' and subsequent games, guards will search hiding spots near to your last location and will attack you if you're found there.
** Guards failing to realize that the patrol they're in has mysteriously lost a few members, if they don't see the bodies.
** Guards who lose sight of you in a chase and go back to their patrol spots will not recognize you if you walk right up to them a short while later.
** The guards also engage in [[Mook Chivalry]] across all the games, waiting politely for their turn to attack you and get a Counter Kill to the face. This is so prevalent that the rare times when they ''do'' attack more rapidly are surprising and challenging. The games do a certain amount of [[Lampshade Hanging]] of this, in that the [[Enemy Chatter]] will occasionally reveal that they're carefully planning their attacks because they're ''scared shitless'' of you.
** By contrast, there are also scenarios where the guards are absurdly and unrealistically alert. In ''[[Assassin's Creed I (Videovideo Gamegame)|Assassin's Creed I]]'', galloping on your horse in sight of any Templar soldiers will make them recognize you almost immediately. High Profile actions such as running after killing someone will also alert them, in contrast to strolling casually away, even if all the civilians around you are screaming and panicking.
* Similarly, the [[NPC|NPCs]] in ''[[Oblivion]]'' have an amazing ability to mistake loud clanking sounds and arrows sticking out of their head for the wind, or their own imagination. The last words of many a bandit have been, "Damn rats, always sneaking about in the shadows, making [[Killed Mid-Sentence|me-ARGH!"]]
** Also, guards will only ever react to a corpse by muttering to themselves about a killer being on the loose, and resume patrolling. They'll also not react much to seeing their buddies being assassinated right beside them other than blankly staring and said muttering.
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** Even better is when two [[NPC|NPCs]] are talking, and you shoot one while sneaking. The other one turns and walks away, mid-conversation.
** The guards in ''[[Morrowind]]'' are never sure what to do with a naked (wo)man with a large pile of stolen goods at his feet except fine him a few septims and leave him to his business.
** In ''[[Skyrim]]'', some of the same problems that were in ''[[Oblivion]]'' return. If you attack an enemy while sneaking, they will look for their attacker for a few seconds, then stop looking and go back to whatever it was they were doing. This may include sitting down to return to dinner...with an arrow in their head...that was poisoned...''[[Kill It Withwith Fire|and on fire]]''...
*** ''[[Skyrim]]'' lets you do crazy things with high skills and the right perks. It's quite possible to find two people talking, walk (not sneak) over to one, behead him/her with a battleaxe, and have the other just stare at you.
*** There's also a quirk in the programming which that means sometimes the character can see you even though the AI cannot. Successfully sneaking past a person while their head slowly swivels to follow your every move is... weird, to say the least.
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** This is lampshaded by a boss in the aforesaid Shattered Halls dungeon, who will actually comment as you individually kill his henchmen. "Go ahead. I was going to kill him anyway." In fact if you don't attack them he ''will'' kill them, one by one, then attack you.
** There is one CoH mission where you are given a temporary power that is basically a guard suit. You can walk past any guard and get the objectives of the mission completed without anyone being the wiser. This wouldn't be bad if it didn't work on any enemy NPC in the game. Including a faction that actively hates the faction you are dressing up as.
* In ''[[Beyond Good and& Evil (Videovideo Gamegame)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'', the heroine can shoot a projectile into a guard's air tank -- and unless she's in plain sight or really unlucky, the other guards present will just fix the tank, then declare "false alarm" and get back to their business.
** And even if she is seen, she can just run around a corner where they can't see her, and after a few seconds they'll do the same thing. Repeatedly.
** Perhaps the only (moderately) justified action they take is when Jade runs out of sight, they dispatch a droid to clear the area. Of course, they usually clear the area just out of sight and ignore any areas slightly farther out of sight.
** In many areas, but particularly notable in one guard-riddled passage in Alpha Sections HQ (roughly 6 guards in a 50-foot stretch of open balcony, plus about 4 more immediately above and below it), the guards will look around everywhere except entrance points. In the referenced area, one guard faces in a direction no attack could possibly come from, and if he stayed in place but turned around the mission would be impossible.
** Even if their [[Apathy Killed the Cat|suicidal lack of curiosity]] didn't earn them a Darwin Award, their general behaviour would. They spend most of their guarding time walking or turning in slow circles or standing in one place ''facing a wall''. And their commanders aren't any more intelligent. One happily reports to his superior that all intruders in the area have been captured... while one stands in the middle of an empty room in his direct line of view.
* In the early stealth portion of the Forsaken Fortress in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: theThe Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', Moblins patrol small areas of the fortress, and if they see you, it's into the prison with you. However, there are barrels that you can hide in. You can even move about as long as they're not looking, because the fact that a barrel is somewhere that it wasn't tells them ''absolutely nothing''. This is possibly justified by their being explicitly stated to be really, really stupid.
** Speaking of Zelda, the guards in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' don't react unless you're several feet in front of them.
** The smartest one in the game is an automated statue that spits lasers at you with alarming accuracy (well, alarming when you account for the fact that they're only about a second slow, and in real life, that would be close enough to scare the crap out of most anyone. Certainly a twelve-year-old like Link).
** It's pretty much established that also the guards of Hyrule castle are, well... dumb, without exception. No matter what time period the game in question plays in ([[Continuity Snarl|not that we would know]])), the guards never seem to notice anyone walking by, if he's not right before their eyes. Even Princess Zelda has been mentioned to sneak out of the castle with no problems frequently. The only time the guards actually keep something from going in- or outside is in Majora's Mask. And this almost ensured the Termian apocalypse.
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** Speaking of ''Majora's Mask'', the guards are ''very'' diligent about keeping children from wandering out of town to the 'dangerous' wilds, to the point that they will do nothing to stop a little old lady from getting robbed in plain sight, by a thief who makes no attempt to conceal his identity. Even assuming there was some pressing issue preventing them from stopping the robbery, there's no reason they wouldn't recognize him when he walks back into town the very next day to sell the stolen goods to the curio shop next door.
** [[Phantom Hourglass|The Phantom Guardians]], as [[Animated Armor|cool as they might look]], are not even the tiniest bit smarter than any other kind of guard in the series. They ''fail'' to realize that a kid just took refuge in the Safe Zones, even though they chased it right until it did. They ''fail'' to dodge any eventual trap that Link sets up for them. They ''fail'' to realize that one of the collegues [[Spirit Tracks|has just]] [[Demonic Possession|been possessed]] [[Our Ghosts Are Different|with what is]] [[Princesses Prefer Pink|quite obviously a female (and over the top girly) ghost.]]
* Vaan has to infiltrate Rabanastre palace early on in ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]''. In advance it sounds like an annoying [[Stealth Based Mission]]. Then you get there and the guards are apparently blind, as they never notice you unless you bump into them or yell at them.
** This is actually justified: Vayne wants to ''lure'' the [[La Résistance|Resistance]] in his palace in order to defeat them here and now, and certainly told the guards to let suspicious characters go inside the palace: it is not the incompetence from the guards, it is the [[Magnificent Bastard]] playing chess until [[Spanner in Thethe Works|Vaan jumped on the board]], epic quest [[Gambit Pileup|Good old fashioned Ivalice-style politics]] and [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|"Undying gods" being slayed]] ensue.
* ''[[Pokémon]]'' games all have an evil team of some sort. You can infiltrate their base, but the guards will only see you if you walk in front of them.
** People only see you if you are directly in front of them... so groups of trainers are like a laser wire maze.
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** Not only that, but the random guards usually have completely awful Pokémon. Whatever Mafia don decided it would be good security to give their patrol guards standard-issue Magikarps ''deserves'' to have his entire syndicate taken down by a single ten-year-old. At least this was [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''Diamond''/''Pearl'', where the grunts complain about how useless their issued Pokémon are after being beaten and before letting you continue.
** Don't forget the totally idiotic guard who goes, "Who has the lift-key?! I'm not telling you who!" and battles you, and after the battle he goes, "Oh NO! I dropped it!" and he... lets the player pick up the lift-key... WTF?
*** Because he doesn't want to get mauled by your dragon/wolf/devil dog/tame metal [[SCP Foundation (Wiki)|SCP-682]].
** Wes and Michael have brassier balls than the other protagonists by far as a result of the methods Cipher includes in its peon training. They are trained with good Pokemon regularly, a larger variety is made available, some are armed with Shadow Pokemon, they ignore the tripwire mentality, [[Memetic Mutation|Ceiling Peon is watching you infiltrate]], they disguise themselves as civvies on occasion, they come in groups... need I go on?
* The guards in the ''[[Tenchu]]'' series are not the brightest folk in medieval Japan. While they will look around for you for a while if they spot your shadow or see you moving just out of clear sight, the fact that a dead guard causes no more than a few minutes searching, and no call for backup, seems to indicate that broken necks and gaping sword wounds weren't considered too unusual in an average night's work.
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* Averted in ''[[Beyond Castle Wolfenstein]]''. If the guards see you with a weapon out, they start shooting. In ''Beyond'', you can sneak up behind them with a knife and stab them; if the other guards see the corpse before you drag it out of sight, they'll head for the alarm and set it off. They'll also ask you for a pass periodically.
** In the original ''[[Castle Wolfenstein]]'', you could steal a uniform and wear it; the regular guards would generally ignore you, but the SS would find you out.
* Guards in ''[[GoldenGoldenEye Eye007 (1997 (Videovideo Gamegame)|Golden Eye 1997]]'' must be blind and extremely nearsighted, because a patrolling guard will not bother to investigate the sound of gunfire even if you are using the loudest weaponry and they don't seem to notice you until you're almost right in front of you.
** You can also shoot their hats off their heads without getting a response.
** Likewise, you can unload on the helmeted ones and they won't notice all the metallic clanking noises happening right at their head, nor feel the force of the gunshots.
* In ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'', you can shoot someone in the face with a tranquilizing arrow (which usually takes two or three hits to knock them out) from a small pistol crossbow, and they will, if you're not in plain sight in front of them, briefly run around waving their arms... then go back to whatever they were doing.
** Not to mention they can walk to the source of a noise, look straight at one of their colleagues' body lying dead on the floor and promptly declare it was "probably just a cat".
** One of the worst situations is in the {{spoiler|1=MJ12 facility underneath UNACTO. You are stripped of your entire inventory, but your captors think nothing of taking away your key ring or your ''ammo''. Granted, the cell you were in would have been escape proof, if it wasn't for Daedalus.}}
** The worst part in all of this is that the Majestic 12 armored troops will notice said colleagues' bodies... so it's not an engine limitation. Other guards are just * that* stupid.
** The AI has improved significantly in the ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Video Game)|third game]]''. The game still plays with the trope though with some guards being programmed to be incompetent. For example, there are a number of guards that are easy to sneak up on because they are talking, watching TV, smoking, napping, or engaging in some other activity that is distracting them.
* In ''Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse'' in one of the first levels the player may gain control of a policeman by using the protagonist's arm. Other policemen won't notice the odd one unless he has a gun out, despite wearing a zombie arm as a hat.
* The guards in ''[[Perfect Dark]] 64'' are pretty smart. Blast a couple, the survivors will run for the alarm button. Snipe one, his buddy will run up and yell in despair (at which point you slay him also). But the good guy guards aren't always the smartest. You can tranq a stewardess for Air Force One (!) with a crossbow bolt (huge, works if it goes in her brain) and steal her uniform. Nobody checks your ID, even though your guard detail is long gone. In an earlier level, helicopter pilots will shoot through their (female) colleagues to get to you.
** Even funnier, if you shoot a guard who is not aware of you, they will occasionally say in a curious tone "Was that a bullet?"
* In ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'', at one point Lucas and his dog attempt to get into a nightclub, only to be informed by the bouncers that "No Dogs Allowed". The two slink away and seconds later, Lucas and his Dog (now wearing human clothes and walking upright) walk up and try to enter. The guards aren't fooled, and even mention that Lucas was just here with his dog, and now walks up with a dude who looks suspiciously like a dog. They only get in due to one of the staff members vouching for them, and even then the guards seem suspicious. But after that they do admit that even if Lucas did just get lucky pulling a fast one on them, the dog is freaking awesome.
* The [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|Krimzon Guard]] in ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak II:]] [[Darker and Edgier|Renegade]]'' will forget about the ''Guard-slaughtering [[Phlebotinum Rebel]] the city's supreme ruler considers Public Enemy Number One'' if you enter a safehouse for two seconds. You can also walk down the street with gun raised, distinctive haircut and [[Team Pet]] sitting on your shoulder (almost impossible to fake, not that anyone wants to try), and they won't give a piece of crap. [[Rule of Fun]] applies, because being gunned down by KG every time you step out of a safe house would produce an [[Nintendo Hard|even more frustrating]] game.
** It's implied that many of the actual guards (as opposed to their commanders) are lazy and corrupt, so they probably just didn't care (and didn't want to get killed).
** Daxter [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in the second mission after the first act, the heat from {{spoiler|their direct assault on the palace}} dies off after one mission and he says in a shocked tone; "How hard is it to get noticed in this town?!"
* In ''[[Okami (Video Game)Ōkami|Okami]]'', the Imp guards outside the main part of the [[Disc One Final Dungeon|Moon Cave]] dismiss Amaterasu as a normal wolf (perfectly reasonable though, in that only a few can see her [[Facial Markings|markings]]), but when she comes back wearing a ''[[Paper-Thin Disguise|piece of paper over her face]]'', they immediately let Ammy through, telling her to "Get back to [her] post!"
* The military in ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|Prototype]]'' takes this to ridiculous extremes. Random Marine jumping off a skyscraper, flying into the base, landing hard enough to make an impact crater, and proceeding to run up the walls? When it's well-known that your highest-priority target is a [[Voluntary Shapeshifter]]? Perfectly normal, apparently.
** One assumes that the individual soldiers on patrol do realise that it's you, but really, what would ''you'' do in this situation: an insanely powerful shapeshifter ([[One-Man Army|who is perfectly capable of soloing whole platoons of tanks and helicopter gunships]], not to mention the not-unusual 10,000+ [[I Am a Humanitarian|onomnom]] count on the random infantry shmucks exactly like you) runs past, not stopping to eat or eviscerate you. Him not stopping makes you the luckiest man alive at that moment in time. If you try and stop him by yourself, what chance exactly do you have against someone who tanks missiles to the face, and can jump off a helicopter he tore apart mid-flight, land on a tank, pick up said tank and throw it into another helicopter? If you call in backup, you only draw attention to yourself and/or place yourself in the middle of what ''will'' turn into a bloody warzone with artillery strikes, carpet bombing and airstrikes all over the place, not to mention one suddenly-pissed-off [[One-Man Army]]. The solo guards who don't call in the insanely overpowered, flying, super mutant are simply showing [[Artificial Brilliance|an advanced sense of self-preservation]].
** Need to get rid of a soldier, but he and a buddy have covering fields of vision so you can't stealth kill either of them? If you disguise yourself as a soldier and bump into one enough, he'll turn toward you and shove you away, then ''remain facing that direction''. Even if there's just a wall right in front of his face.
** You can also use a combination of the "Patsy" power and the "stealth consume" to stealth-kill an entire combat base full of Marines and Blackwatch personnel. This causes much humor when you realize that ''an entire base full of heavily armed guards'' is slowly disappearing and ''nobody notices''. Even if it's just you and another guard left. But whatever you do, don't try Patsy on him. Because only then will he think something is wrong.
* ''[[Evil Genius (Videovideo Gamegame)|Evil Genius]]'' plays this absolutely straight and quite deliberately. Your [[Evil Minions]] will outright ''ignore'' any agent of the forces of justice unless they've been tagged for execution or capture. These include squads of heavily-armed soldiers, thieves in brightly-colored [[Spy Catsuit|Spy Catsuits]], [[Highly-Visible Ninja]], and musclebound supersoldiers [[Dual-Wielding]] machineguns.
** The infiltrating agents showcase an unusual variant of this. Locked doors are understandably much more interesting to them than an unlocked door. However, the end result is that if you lower the security level on the door an agent is trying to break through, they will usually lose interest immediately and wander off.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]].'': Why Princess Peach still pays her guards is a source of continual mystification to videogame fans. She'd have better luck with a "Do not kidnap the Princess" sign than her usual group of Toads.
** Also, the kings in ''[[Super Mario Bros 3 (Video Game)|Super Mario Bros 3]]''. They have, in the entirety of the royal castles, one guard for each king in each country, and being as that guard is a Toad, said guard gets instantly knocked out by a Koopaling just charging at it.
** On the other side of the conflict, the Koopa guards in ''[[Paper Mario (Video Gamefranchise)|Paper Mario]]'' are also pretty pathetic. If they catch Peach sneaking around the castle, they'll usually just escort her back to her room and go back to whatever they were doing beforehand without ever questioning how she keeps getting out. At one point, they decide not to take her back, because they're about to hold a quiz show and still need one more contestant.
*** And when she wins that show, they hand her a magic umbrella that lets her shapeshift.
*** Just escorting her back to the room makes sense since the castle she's being held captive in is effectively ''in orbit''. Where's she gonna go? They could probably at least tell Bowser that Peach keeps getting out of her room, but then again Bowser is also kind of an idiot in the RPG games.
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* The guards on ''[[The Bouncer]]'' always follow their job so loyally, in fact even if the place is gonna sink they'll stop at nothing to stop our heroes.
{{quote| '''Kou Leifoh:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|I can't believe they're attacking us! They must be really love their job!]]}}
* Guardia Prison security in ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]''. They throw you into the dungeon... while letting you keep your sword. That doesn't turn out well for them.
** {{spoiler|You can thank Yakra XIII for that oversight. He didn't think taking over as the modern Chancellor all the way through.}}
** When your party is captured later in the game due to extreme [[Cutscene Incompetence]] on their part, the villain takes your weapons, inventory and money. At least he is a bit smarter about how to handle prisoners. It really helps if you have {{spoiler|Ayla}} in your party at this point.
** Even then, the guards on the Blackbird aren't much better. For one thing, they fall for the [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit|fake-being-sick-so-the-guards-come-into-the-cells-and-you-punch-them-out]] ploy, which is pretty much the oldest trick in the book. When you escape your cell, you can also run around the ship right past many of the guards, and they won't notice unless you get within sneezing distance of them. It's arguably [[Justified]] later on by one of the guards you can talk to in the commons after you defeat Dalton, the guards' boss. The guard tells you that [[Bad Boss|Dalton treated his employees badly and didn't pay them well]], which means they probably weren't inclined to work very hard in the first place.
* Many guards in ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' carry flashlights. If you stand just outside their circle of light, they can not see you at all. There are similar guards with good hearing, which Sly automatically tries to sneak up on/past. Occasionally you run into both.
* In the fourth chapter of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island (Video Game)|Tales of Monkey Island]]'', Guybrush must escape from jail while awaiting trial by asking to speak to his lawyer (he's representing himself). When Guybrush is ready to stop conversing with his "client", the guard will let him out.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]'', one has to wonder why the hell none of the guards on the Cargo Ship bothered to continue the search for the intruder (Sephiroth) after Cloud & co. defeated Jenova. There's no way they could have known that he was gone at that point, so why bother calling off the search? "Yeah, just ignore all the dead bodies and the undiscovered intruder. Just dock as planned!"
** Heidegger was in charge of ship security at the time, so he's just as much at fault as the rest of the incompetent guard. Rufus [[Lampshade Hanging|comments]] on the failings of command when the ship docks.
{{quote| '''Rufus:''' So Sephiroth was on board...<br />
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'''Heidegger:''' ...Yes.<br />
'''Rufus:''' They slipped through... you messed up big this time, Heidegger. }}
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'', you can literally stand in the way or in front of the guard in the imperial base, and he won't notice you unless you talk to him.
* At one point in ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'', [[Cutscene Incompetence]] results in you getting curbstomped and thrown into a jail cell. The guards don't bother to take anything away from you, so you still have all your weapons when you wake up in the cell.
* Subverted in ''Sanity: Aiken's Artifact''. The main guard blocks you pretty well, until you {{spoiler|read the guard's mind to find out the employee password.}}
* According to some playthroughs, the AI in ''[[Civilization]] IV'' will occasionally [[Artificial Stupidity|remove defending units from its capital city which you are currently besieging]]. [[Sarcasm Mode|You weren't actually going to attack, right?]]
* In ''[[Runescape (Video Game)|Runescape]]'', This is acknowledged during a cut-scene in the "Garden of Tranquillity" Quest, where a "veteran" guard explains to a new recruit that the life expectancy for a Falador guard is about 30 seconds, which upon saying that a high-levelled "player" comes and slaughters both of them.
* In ''[[Dragon Quest IX (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IX]]'', Your character is imprisoned some time into the game. At first glance, you would think this was averted. However, press Y and open your equipment menu... This results in a few funny instances, such as guards bossing someone in full plate armor and carrying a sword that shoots fire.
* The ''[[Fable (Videovideo Gamegame series)|Fable]]'' series has quite a bit of this. In ''[[Fable I (Videovideo Gamegame)|Fable I]]'', should you break a window, someone nearby will tell the guards, which they will charge after you and proceed to hack you into little bits should you decide not to pay them. Same thing if you just committed total genocide on a village, but should you apologize to the guards, they immediately forgive you and continue on their merry way.
** In ''[[Fable II (Video Game)|Fable II]]'', should you accidentally or on purpose, murder ONE villager, the guards will then constantly say, "I won't let you murder anyone else!"
** Spire guards will too proceed to be dumb as wood, never mind the fact that this guy (or girl) {{spoiler|broke out of an unbreakable collar, probably killed about 50 of your mates with powerful spells, just hacked them to pieces or shot their [[Groin Attack|balls off]]}}. Charge to certain death! {{spoiler|Doubly so after the most powerful will user on the planet gets his powers back.}}
* Near the end of ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]]'', the Warden and Alistair can be captured and thrown in prison. A persuasive Warden (of either sex) can ask the guard for company, and the guard will immediately lock himself in the cell with two prisoners accused of regicide. [[Foregone Conclusion|Then you can jump him and steal his keys]].
** ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'''s Mark of the Assassin DLC includes a [[Stealth Based Mission]] in which Hawke must sneak past the guards of the Orlesian Chateau Haine. Fortunately, the guards are easily convinced by whatever ridiculous story Hawke can come up with, are highly susceptible to distraction by thrown pebbles, apparently have very poor night vision, and are remarkably unconcerned about waking up on the floor in the middle of their patrol after being [[Tap Onon the Head|tapped on the back of the head]]: "Damned blackouts..."
* At one point in the 1989 computer RPG ''Dragon Wars'', the party gets captured and thrown into a jail cell (for the second time) and this trope comes into play, as the guards seemingly ''forget to lock your cell door!'' It turns out to be a subversion when you enter the next room, where the guards happen to be waiting for you. It seems these guards got into a lot of trouble for beating prisoners in their cells. But if the prisoners were ''trying to escape...''
* Marines in the 2010 ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]'' are remarkably blasé about having all their mates disappear one-by-one only to show up again as scattered corpses lacking in skulls/spines, or with a rather telling hole in their head. They also decide to check out on strange distorted verbal taunts originating from nearby isolated corners alone, without bringing backup, and will stand around with their backs turned mumbling "I'm sure it came from over here..." for a good few minutes. [[Too Dumb to Live|Even if said isolated corner already contains three to four corpses of previously mentioned dead marines with their skulls missing]].
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** Anyone also notice that, except for a few rare occasions, they never do something like, say, call for backup? Dial 999 even? Granted the leader of the Triads living in his remote mountain castle is hardly going to put a call into the police (even if they were in his pocket) but when the guards find 6 bodies littering the lobby at the casino? Nope...
** And they down upon contact with water. Even if they were just swimming in it earlier.
* In ''[[Dark Messiah (Videoof Game)Might and Magic|Dark Messiah]]'' lots of guards fall under this trope, they stand around near obvious hazards such as a wall about to collapse, when fighting the hero they stand close to spikes, pits, fires which they can easily be kicked into and they don't bother checking for traps infront of them when they spot the player, leading to a line of guards getting killed by the same trap.
* Possibly invoked by the party in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (Videovideo Gamegame)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', when captured on the ''Leviathan''. Several of the schemes floated to break your crew out of the ship's prison involve ''making'' the guards crazy, including Jolee's (which uses a [[Jedi Mind Trick]] on them) and Mission's (which involves [[I Shall Taunt You|good old-fashioned headgames]]). On the other hand, ''three'' of these plans involve the "it's probably nothing" ploy: you can convince the Sith to take a "dead" body, "disabled" droid, or perfectly functional but "harmless" astromech into their ship. Juhani's plan is the only one that doesn't count, because [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Jedi ninja catgirl]] response drills are probably few and far between.
* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest'', the guards everywhere are very nice about only attacking you one at a time and not noticing what's going on around them.
* In ''[[Dubloon (Video Game)|Dubloon]]'', a map important to finding a sea serpent is on an island tightly guarded by the Navi, so what does the player's crew do? Why, send in their [[Team Pet]] that guards don't even suspect for ''anything''. One of them even ''tells'' him the location of where the key to the house is hidden.
* Subverted in the first ''[[Call of Duty]]'' game. In one of the missions of the British campaign, Cpt. Price and Sgt. Evans (the player) are given the task to sabotage the German battleship ''Tirpitz'' from inside, and in order to do that they've to kill two German seamen on shore and take their uniforms. Once they arrives to the ship, they were allowed onboard thanks to Cpt. Price's fluenty german, but when they arrives to the armory, one of the guards stationed outside is suspicious of them (likely due to Cpt. Price's lack of German accent) and phonecall the command about Cpt. Price's false ID-card to see if it's realible. Their covers soon about to be blow up, Cpt. Price shoots the guards, and cue to an firefight.
* In the first ''[[Commandos (Video Game)|Commandos]]'' game some of the levels had prisons. If one of your men was spotted then he would be held at gunpoint, and as long as he didn't move or perform an offensive action then he would eventually be marched off to the jail where his buddies could later break him out (or, more likely, you could just [[Save Scumming|reload]]). However, in maps with no jail the lone guards would [[Artificial Stupidity|never, ever fire]] on one of your men as long as he remained perfectly still, and only the arrival of a patrol would cause them to shoot. If there were no patrols nearby then you have a man crawl to a chosen spot and then suddenly stand up, ensuring that a guard spotted him and stood there with his cone of vision fixated on the one spot. Any other guards that could see the commando or another alerted guard would join in, potentially causing a chain reaction where dozens of enemies would converge and look towards one point. If your squad's brave volunteer was carefully positioned then it was fairly trivial for another squad member to then methodically stab everyone whilst they were distracted. This troper called this the 'Sniper tactic', since the Sniper was the most [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|useless squad member]], making him an ideal candidate for the job.
 
 
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[[Beat Panel]]<br />
Tiffany: And that is why you are not allowed to keep the key. }}
* And of course, ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'' has an example: even by the ridiculously low standards of this page, Guineas [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-03-08 FAIL]. He doesn't like his boss and is not very motivated, though, to the point of constantly [[Obfuscating Stupidity|playing dumb]] to lower expectations and shirk the work.
** PTTAPUTASF guards have open windows -- with lights on, various dangerous magic toys and things like a huge diamond lying in the open like in a museum, but without as much as a working alarm, and react only when a fight breaks in the storage. Might or might not have been mentally manipulated, though.
* The Guardbots in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' were apparently designed to keep obedient robots in line. Hence, they're at a complete loss when Antimony ''runs away''. Similarly, Doorbot is supposed to insure that only robots enter one entrance. Annie convinces him to let her pass by [[Paper-Thin Disguise|wearing antennae]] and [[Most Definitely Not a Villain|repeatedly pointing out that she's obviously a robot]].
** Of course she's a robot. [[Circular Reasoning|She says that she is, and robots never lie.]]
* Spoofed in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (Webcomic)|The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', where in one strip the good doctor attempts to disguise himself as a guard, ''[[Highly-Visible Ninja|but leaves his mask on]]''. [http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=16&issue=1 The guards catch on immediately].
* Averted in ''[[Goblins]]'' [http://www.goblinscomic.com/11272006/ here]: the titular goblins try to sneak into the city and ''random low level town guards'' have enough sense to both check where the rock came from and summon help, resulting in a city riot about an army of goblins hiding in the sewers.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' pulls this several times:
** In the prequel book ''On the Origin of PCs'', Haley breaks in to a building to steal a large diamond. She accidentally wakes the guard up, but he buys her story that she is just a rather Freudian dream.
{{quote| '''Guard:''' You look hot in leather, Mom...}}
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* ''[[Minions At Work]]'': [http://www.minionsatwork.com/2006/05/minions-4-watch-your-back.html Letting him keep something from his mother].
* The sleeping [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20080603.html peanut butter factory guard] and the slow and clumsy [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090829.html guard-bot] in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''.
* In ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]'', there may be [[Running Gag|many guards in the castle]], but [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0288.html they don't seem that good at keeping their secret passwords actually secret]. A [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0350.html later strip] subverts this somewhat.
* Guards at the castle in ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]'' show a [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081105 deplorable underreaction] when someone claiming he's that [[Overlord, Jr.|son and heir of their boss]] who [[One-Man Army|stopped a little armored army single-handedly]] on the whole city's eyes right before these guys' shift "asked ''nice''" to enter. That he leads a crowd, brandishes an unknown device and [[Cheshire Cat Grin|maniacally grins]] didn't spur their brains to work faster either. To be fair the guards weren't really listening. In fact, if you follow that elegant and finely-crafted link above, you'll notice that about one panel later he says, "[[Double Take|Wait, you're who?]]"
** [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120113 Later], Gilgamesh discovers that all but one of his father's guards consider the fact that he's wearing an [[Nice Hat|extremely impressive hat]] with his name written on it (''misspelled'') to constitute definitive proof of his identity. He promises the one who didn't a promotion.
* In ''[[The Garden (Webcomicwebcomic)|The Garden]]'', guards fail to notice even the most obvious noises. In [http://thegarden.thewebcomic.com/comics/986723/chap-2-pg-27/ this page], [[Fan Nickname|Bathrobe Guy]] confronts his guards about why they let his prisoners escape. In response, they respond in all seriousness with "They said you let them go."
* In ''[[Get Medieval]]'', Torquel Hane pulled free of his chains (by [[Badass|dislocating his thumbs]]); when a guard came to investigate his cry of pain, Torquel distracted him by pointing his obviously unchained hand and saying ''another'' prisoner had escaped. The guard [[Too Dumb to Live|turned to look]], and CLUNK!
* In ''[[Minion Comics]]'', the guards assume intruders are involved in a homosexual orgy after [http://www.meetmyminion.com/?p=705 strange comments by Wendell].
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== Web Original ==
* In episode 8 of [[Code Ment]], Lelouch/One spends about a minute and half firing roughly 70 bullets from a pistol [[Bottomless Magazines|without reloading]]. The two guards outside the room casually converse over and throughout the clearly audible gunfire. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|They then kick the door in and rush in guns blazing when they are alarmed by Lelouch's cough]].
* The LifesBlood Labs goons in ''[[LGLG15: 15the The Resistanceresistance]]'' are pretty incompetent. The "Mace in Yo Face!" and "Done Dirt Cheap" incidents are particularly shameful.
** Although the "Mace in Yo Face" incident is justified because {{spoiler|those weren't real LBL henchmen}}.
* The [[Evil Overlord List]] has all sorts of tips on how to turn the guards from this sort of behaviour and turn them into a ruthless fighting force prepared to guard anything anytime.
* In ''[[Clear Skies (Machinima)|Clear Skies]] 2'', the team are able to spring an informant from a prison outpost (admittedly, a very backwater one) by posing as guards for a prisoner transfer. It works, despite their credentials being stolen and very, ''very'' out of date, because the local guard was expecting a prisoner transfer at around that time. He gets chewed out later.
* The ''[[How It Should Have Ended (Web Animation)|How It Should Have Ended]]'''s ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzVWrOmFWpU parody].
 
 
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* Used, played with, subverted and lampshaded frequently in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', most often through the misadventures of Number 21 and Number 24, [[Those Two Guys|two guards]] who [[Mauve Shirt|somehow manage to survive the carnage of the series]], and give plausible voice to the wit and social skills necessary for career henchmen.
* Subverted in the ''[[Gummi Bears]]'' episode when trolls are holding the Gummi hostage in Gummi Glen, to force the colony to recover a treasure hidden in a tree they uprooted and put in Castle Dunwin. Unfortunately, when Gummis get to the tree they find it empty, because the castle guards were apparently smart enough to discover the treasure and moved it to the castle treasury.
* Used and slightly lampshaded in an episode of ''[[Duck Tales (Animation)DuckTales|Duck Tales]]'' where Huey, Dewey, and Louie are imprisoned in a room with a guard looking in at them once every hour or so. While two of the identical triplets work on the means of their escape, the third one sits in front of a trifold mirror, giving the impression -- sort of -- that there are three boys sitting there. Lampshaded in that one of the boys asks whether the guard won't notice that they're all wearing the same clothes, only to be told by the one devising the plan that "he's so tired, he's not going to care WHAT we're wearing, just so long as there's three of us." Improbably, this turns out to be true.
* The Trope was played with in ''[[Stroker and Hoop]]'', when Stroker has to knock a guard out to get deeper into a complex. After [[Dressing Asas the Enemy|dressing as the guard]], he gets into the next room where the guard is seemingly fooled by Stroker holding a clipboard over his face and using a bad falsetto... until he starts to continue, at which point the guard asks him if he thinks he's an idiot, and that he was on the monitor. To which Stroker asks if he's even supposed to be watching the monitors.
* In the ''[[Earthworm Jim (Animationanimation)|Earthworm Jim]]'' episode "Conqueror Worm", Jim, Peter, and Snot have to get Jim's supersuit back from the labs where it was put after Jim was arrested, ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]) but first have to get past the security guards!... Which they stroll right past. The sight of a giant worm, talking dog, and living booger spurs only one reaction from the guards.
{{quote| '''Guard:''' ''(on phone)'' Hello, DNA lab? Whatever you guys are doing in there-- ''Cut it out!''}}
* ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (Animation)|Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'' had several examples of Queenie's [[Mooks]] being either thoroughly incompetent... or very competent, [[Depending Onon the Writer]]. With the first examples, Doc could hijack their communicator signals and pull lines of BS on them ("New Frontier," "Badge of Power"), sending them on a wild goose chase... or right into Goose's blasters. The more competent ones, like in "Tortuna", could be bribed or needed to be fought.
* The guards of the "high security" prison in the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' episodes "The Boiling Rock". Sokka and Zuko somehow obtain uniforms and pass themselves off as newbies. The [["Alone Withwith Prisoner" Ploy]] occurs in the first of the two episodes. Strangely enough, Zuko slips up and is caught - but Sokka, who was the one alone with Suki, isn't suspected at all. Later on, Sokka pulls up his mask and goes to the side to talk to two prisoners. They're obviously not hiding particularly well because they ''are'' caught...by another prisoner. The second episode is rife with its own examples of [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]] as well.
** There's a bit of [[Fridge Horror]] regarding how Sokka was able to get alone time with Suki. She almost seems like she was ''expecting'' a random guard to come in and try kissing her. Maybe the male guards don't date the female ones because [[Prison Rape|they can get satisfaction somewhere else...]]
* Parodied in ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]'', where one of Peter's [[Manatee Gag|Manatee Gags]] has him claiming it is easier to escape from Canada's Alcatraz. Cue the scene where an inmate simply walks up to a guard and asks if he can leave through this door. The guard simply says sure, just be back before bedtime, and letting the inmate leave.
 
 
== Real Life ==
* [[Escape Fromfrom Alcatraz|Alcatraz's]] guards were fooled by one oldest trick in the book after another: dummy heads in the bed, [[Locking MacGyver in Thethe Store Cupboard|digging a hole with spoons]], and climbing up the [[Air Vent Passageway|ventilator shaft]], making this trope not only [[Genre Blindness]] but [[Truth in Television]]. Since the Alcatraz escape was done some years ago, it might be [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny]] too.
** To say nothing of [[It Only Works Once]]...
** Thing is, this isn't a bad escape plan, which is why it worked. Basically it relies on the fact that it simply isn't practical to monitor prisoners TOO closely, so if you're clever enough... plus, after this happened I suspect it became a lot more popularized anyway.
** The Guards were also relying on San Francisco bay's freezing, and [[Everything's Even Worse Withwith Sharks|Great White]] ''infested'', water doing the hard work for them. Which may have happened.
* [[Truth in Television]]: A convict in a US prison was able to escape by dressing up as a guard, because the guards were more familiar with the prisoners than each other.
** There has also been at least one case where an accomplice faxed realistic-looking release papers from a nearby McDonald's fax machine, resulting in a convict walking out scot-free, without anyone thinking about double-checking even the clearly visible fax-number.
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